


Miles from where you are

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 50 AUs Meme, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Multi, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-21 23:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2485610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>50 unrelated stories written for the 50 AUs meme. POVs tagged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The world's oldest profession (Arthur)

Arthur had been part of the Court for about two years when Rhaegar brought in a formal mistress.

Aerys disapproved of mistresses - rumour had it he'd almost banned them when his mistress of choice turned him down back in the day, right after he assumed control - but Rhaegar, being Rhaegar and being pissed that Elia was medically incapable of giving him more kids, which he felt were his right or something, had defied Aerys and brought in the Stark girl.

Mistresses of the Family were kept in the tower - the Courtiers called it the Ivory Tower, because it isolated whoever stayed there from everyone else. It was beautiful and luxurious, and part of an entirely separate complex from the rest of the Court, so there was no chance of a punter accidentally wandering in on a mistress and thinking she was available for business, because mistresses were strictly off limits to everyone but the Family member who'd chosen them. No one who went into the Ivory Tower ever came out - women who served as mistresses to the Targaryen family served for life, bound even more tightly than any of the Targaryen Queens who'd served across the years.

The Family called it the Tower of Joy. No one knew why. With the Family, it was better not to ask.

Arthur had been with Rhaegar the day he met Lyanna, his new mistress. She was a nice girl, maybe seventeen, with untidy hair and an attitude a mile high. Arthur liked her plenty, and wished Rhaegar had never even seen her. He'd always considered Rhaegar more or less a friend, despite the fact that Rhaegar's family more or less owned Arthur and his co-workers (not family, he was only at Court to protect his real family), but after the way he saw Rhaegar looking at Lyanna Stark, it was hard to look at Rhaegar and not see Aerys creeping under his skin.

It didn't matter that Little Lya seemed to want to be with Rhaegar - Arthur had spent enough time around the Targaryens by now to know that they could convince you to believe just about anything, if they put their minds to it, and Arthur knew that the heir the biggest prostitution business in the country was more than capable of convincing a sensible girl that he'd fallen in love with her.

He trained other people to do it every day, after all.

 

* * *

 

Arthur didn't lose his virginity on the job (that had been Oberyn, and Elia, within a fortnight of one another, when him and Elia were nineteen and Oberyn and Ash were eighteen), but he'd always topped before he came to Court, so his first male punter had been... An experience.

Bisexual men pretending to be straight men but who couldn't quite keep from wanting to fuck other men so badly they were willing to pay for the privilege were, in Arthur's experience, devoted tops, if only because they were furious about wanting to fuck anything but a woman in the first place, and being the one doing the penetrating reaffirmed their fragile masculinity.

So, he knew what it was like to have an intimate first time with someone who saw you as little more than a willing opening, and he knew Rhaegar, which was why he volunteered to go visit Little Lya, to welcome her to the Court. Mistresses were isolated, but they were still technically Courtiers, so they had to be taught the rules by someone - and the Family were above that kind of thing.

Elia was the one to bring Arthur to the Tower. She'd been his friend for years, all their lives, really, but now she was Rhaegar's wife, and Arthur was a piece of merchandise her husband marketed to the wealthy and depraved. It made things odd between them, left it hard for them to be friends anymore, but Arthur still tried. He'd always thought Elia looked lonely as Rhaegar's wife, because she hadn't exactly  _wanted_ to marry the man who'd one day rule over the Court but hadn't been left with much choice, not if she wanted to keep the Lannisters from getting in and bringing in the sort of reforms that you heard stories about from the Rock.

But Elia was one of the Family, and Arthur was only a Courtier, and it probably would have been easier to just let go and give in, but Arthur wouldn't. He wasn't a career Courtier - he was here because Al had gotten sick right after Ma died, and this was the most lucrative job on offer for either him or Ash, and he refused point-blank to let Ash do this. So Ash stayed at home and looked after Al and Lyria, and Arthur charged through the nose for every blowjob he gave so that he could afford Al's treatment and Lyria's school. 

Arthur wasn't a career Courtier, and he wouldn't pretend that Elia was untouchable just because it was inappropriate for them to be friends right now. 

Arthur didn't mind too much, though - he was one of the top earners, nicknamed the Kingsguard for how close Aerys kept them to him, and as a result, he was well looked after and well paid, and their punters knew better than to do them any lasting harm. He was one of the lucky ones, guaranteed rehab if a regular tried to get him hooked on something, guaranteed a bed of his own at night, guaranteed whatever medical and legal protection he might need if a client tried anything.

Aerys didn't care either way, really, but Rhaegar and Rhaella had taken over most of the functional running of the Court, leaving Aerys to bask in the glory and wealth, and they didn't take well to the merchandise being damaged, and weren't shy about making their displeasure known.

(Arthur had been badly hurt once, six months into his time at the Court, and the man who'd whipped him hard enough to make him bleed had disappeared off the face of the planet. Nobody knew what had happened to him, not even his brother, who was a regular of Arthur's.)

The trip to the Tower from the Court took maybe an hour, and they talked mostly about Elia and Rhaegar's kids, Rhaenys and Aegon. They were good kids, Rhaenys especially - she was the double of Elia, but other than that she was  _completely_ Oberyn - and Arthur had liked them, the couple of times he met them. He didn't understand why Rhaegar couldn't be satisfied with two beautiful kids and a great wife, but he was one of the Family, and with the Family, it was better not to ask.

Elia left him at the door of the Tower, because his Court ID was enough to get him inside, and he stood for a second and watched her drive away. He wondered how they would've reacted, that night him and her and Ash and Oberyn had agreed to be each other's firsts, if someone had told them they'd end up here, and then he swiped his card at the door and let himself in.

Little Lya was waiting for him in the sitting room of her apartment on the top floor - once upon a time, mistresses had been placed according to the position of their Targaryen within the Family hierarchy, but since she was the only one currently in residence, the penthouse was all hers. She didn't seem any happier because of her surroundings, in Arthur's opinion, but he knew better than to say anything - if he knew Court, and he did, the whole place was rigged with cameras and microphones, and if Aerys heard that someone was talking shit about him, well. 

Arthur wouldn't be one of the top earners anymore, put it that way.

"Welcome to Court," he said, sweeping a bow and taking the seat opposite her. "Are you being well taken care of?"

She smiled thinly and leaned forward to pour tea -  _fuck, she's already pregnant, was Rhaegar fucking her before he brought her here?_ \- from a silver tea pot that was probably a priceless antique.

"Extremely," she said. "I see a doctor once a week, I have a housekeeper and a  _maid_ to see to my every whim, and my every material desire is met."

"You've been told the procedure for requests?"

She nodded, but even so, he pulled the contracts out of his bag and spread them out on the table - it took maybe two hours to go through them all, because Aerys' grandfather had been a big believer in protecting the Targaryens by protecting the merchandise, and by the end of it, Little Lya was very pale.

"He didn't explain that this was all business, did he?" Arthur asked quietly. Then, "Lyanna, how old are you? Really, I mean?"

She sniffed, not meeting his eyes, and rubbed her nose with the too-long sleeve of her big grey cable knit jumper.

"Seventeen next birthday," she said in a voice as small as she was, and Arthur wondered if there was a contract on file to cover statutory rape.


	2. There shined a shiny demon (Brienne)

Brienne doesn't know if he's  _the_ Devil or just  _a_ devil. She doesn't think it'll make much difference in the long run, of course, but she'd like to know all the same. Anything Hell spat out is going to cause trouble, and she'd like to know just how  _much_ trouble the golden arsehole is capable of stirring up. _  
_

It's not like the town is unprepared - they live on a convergence point or something like that, and they've got the full arsenal of salt, holy water, silver, iron, and every other anti-supernatural, holier-than-holy, peed-on-by-every-holy-person-in-the-world protection that can be begged, borrowed, bartered or stolen. That's not the problem. They've faced down scarier things than the current devil.

They've never faced anything quite  _like_ the current one, is the problem.

He's very pretty for a devil. This is something Brienne has discussed at length with Renly, who is of the opinion that, were he not utterly devoted to Loras, he would've tried literally fucking the devil out of town. He'd smiled in that roguish way of his, and she hadn't been sure if he was joking or not, and they'd quickly moved onto a different conversation. But the point still stands - their devil is really ridiculously good-looking, with fantastic blonde hair and a George Clooney smile that Brienne is woman enough to admit makes her feel a little warm around the nethers. He's also charming, witty, and more than willing to poke fun at the nastier little bullies that hang around the crossroads, where he's trapped by the wards laid down fifty years ago and more. 

He says his name is Jaime, Jaime Lannister, and Brienne remembers seeing something in one of the warden's journals about a  _Lannister,_ but it's from so long ago that she can't remember and she hasn't had a chance to go looking just yet, because Jaime Lannister? Is a trouble maker.

Not in the usual devil ways, though. He doesn't try to break his bonds at the crossroads, and he doesn't try to sire the Antichrist on any of the local virgins, which is nice - Brienne had to cut the head off the last devil who broke through while he was deflowering that nice Dondarrion girl, and she'd screamed bloody murder when he crumbled to dust on top of her.

Of course, once she'd calmed down and Brienne had explained that better to have to get gravedust out of her hair than try and stop an apocalypse, she'd been happy enough, but it had been an unpleasant evening for all concerned, it really had.

But no, Jaime Lannister causes other trouble. He stirs up fights among the bullies and boys, and he flirts with all the girls so that  _they_ fight with one another, and then he tells the boys that  _other_ boys are flirting with the girls, and...

And he flirts with Brienne. Relentlessly.

Now, Brienne would be the first to admit that she is not a pretty girl. She's come to terms with it, and since she got her braces off, she's at least got a good smile.  

She is not the kind of girl - woman - person - that devils flirt with. For one, she's not a virgin, and for another, she's not the waifish, long-haired, doe-eyed girl the devils tend to favour, or the similarly waifish, doe-eyed boys they like.

Renly also likes waifish looking, doe-eyed boys, but he prefers them to be waifish because they're muscular, like Loras. Brienne doesn't like Loras, but she thinks he might be useful, because the devil doesn't like the usual girls.

The devil seems to like  _her,_ and honestly? Brienne's a lot more charmed than she'd like to be.

She was raised by her dad - her mom died when she was small - and Selwyn Tarth was not what you'd call a tolerant man, at least not as far as anything that could be trapped in the crossroads was concerned. God-fearing and Devil-hating, he'd raised her to hate all thing hellspawn, but it's kind of hard to hate someone who pretends to be evil the way their devil does. 

It's not that she thinks their devil is incapable of evil - she's seen some of the things he's caused among the locals, and the glee he takes in them, and she knows that that's evil - but she can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, he's not as evil as he'd like everone to think he is.


	3. There's a power in what you do (Darcy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set to 'Outside' by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding

You feel it the moment he is born, something golden and perfect clutching at your heart - he is yours and you are his, from that moment until his last.

It will be a long, long while before his last moment comes. You do not mind, though, because you have done this before and you have never, even once, felt this sunburst in your soul. You think that if you had known a joy so pure as this was possible outside of the Communion, you too might have Fallen in those far away days of war, and you hide that thought under the light of his being in your grace.

You have no true name of your own, not beyond what the General might call you when he comes to see that all of you are safe and well,  _little sister_ when you make him laugh as you delight in doing. The warmth blooming like a supernova inside you, though, his name is  _Steve._

 

* * *

 

You fight to keep him safe, but even for a human he is frail, like a frost-spun cobweb that will melt and fall in the dawn. No part of him seems to work as it should except for his soul, which is so beautiful that you are  _sure_ he must have been meant for the Communion.

He grows and remains delicate, built like a dancer but without their strength and elegance, and it aches in your heart to know that this one, this joy who is so perfectly aligned with your own essence, will likely be snatched from you before you can give him the joy he has given you. His eyes are blue and bruised inside and remind you of eternity, and there is nothing in all of Creation you wish for more than to see him  _live._

So you find another blue-eyed boy and give your Steve the thing he longs for most, at present - a  _friend._

(You sometimes feel a twist in your grace that feels like a taint when you see the camaraderie between your Steve and his Bucky, and it will not be for some years yet that you understand that this  _is_ a taint, and that it is called  _jealousy.)_

The hope Bucky's friendship gives to Steve allows him to bloom like the first shy snowdrop of the spring, and nothing has ever seemed sweeter to you. He is as determined to live now as he was in those first fearful days when you were so sure that your only duty to him would be to shepherd him home, and what's more, he is determined that  _others_ should live, too, and live  _well._

You are never more convinced that he belongs in Communion than when he defends someone from one of the hated  _bullies._ In those cruel, prideful children, you see the Morningstar, but in your Steve, you see the General, and that warms every part of you with the sweetest sort of happiness. The General is the only being in all that there is that you love as much as you do Steve, aside from the Father, and it thrills you that your person should be as strong in his soul as your beloved, favourite, best, older brother is in his grace.

You feel Steve's pains as burns on your grace, but his joys are a constellation across your heart that shines even in the darkest of times, of which there are too many (you look at his mother, his beloved ma, and you hope that the Healer takes her under his care, for she would be a wonder at his side).

He almost dies so many times, each one of them a seared-on scar, and you wish that you could do more than hold death's door closed while he stands on its threshold.

 

* * *

 

On the day he lies back in that little metal box and hopes to be made anew, you feel as if your grace has been smouldered clean away, leaving only your heart and the parts of him it holds so dear behind. 

You almost do not know him, this warrior that he becomes, but there is something to be said for his having a body strong enough to bear the weight of his too-strong soul. A terrible fear seizes you when they tell him that Bucky is likely dead - will this be the final pressure, the pain that is too much for him to bear? - but then you see him square his broad, strong shoulders, and again you see your favourite brother in him, in the edge-of-eternity blue of his eyes and in the weight-of-infinity tension in his shoulders. You are proud of him, even though pride is a taint, a sin, beause he came from such humble beginnings and will be so much more than just a man.

Yes, you think. If this is what Falling feels like, you do not blame the Morningstar.

 

* * *

 

Time passes so quickly for you compared with how it moves for Steve, but those decades during which you lean on the final door and keep Steve alive feel like aeons.

 

* * *

 

While he is alive, but sleeping, in the ice, you are recalled home.

It does not feel like home anymore - you have spent sixty years on earth, among the Father's precious ones but outside of them, and that has been enough. A blink of an eye for one such as you, but also your whole life. 

"Good morning, little sister," the General says when he finds you under the Tree. Usually, before, you would agree, but not today. Not now. Steve is still locked in ice and cold and loneliness and grief, and you are here, not a prisoner but sworn to remain, which amounts to the same thing, really.

"Hello, brother," you say instead, and he smiles and sits beside you, under the Tree. It  _is_ a beautiful morning, as all mornings are in this place, but the light and the horizon, usually so warm and so perfect, seem dull and incomplete to you now.

He sits with you, in the dawning sunlight, and his hand is warm and a comfort when it presses over yours.

"There is no shame in Falling for love," he says gently. "Things are not as they were in the days before the Son, little sister."

 

* * *

 

Your name is Darcy and the world is strange and terrible and glorious, and the truth of why the Father loves these fragile creatures who cling to life by a thread so slender it is almost invisible has never been clearer to you.

You meet Steve at a party and the supernova bursts so brightly in her chest that you can't  _breathe,_ can only smile helplessly and force yourself to talk to him. Like this, you are overwhelmed by him, because he is so much and you have only the memories of being more than you are, but it does not matter.

You cannot feel the strength of his soul in this form, but something in you ties itself off so perfectly when he touches the tips of his fingers to the exposed skin of your hip to guide you away from an oncoming waiter, and you think that you might be able to find the strength of his heart.

 


	4. But I tossed it, didn't understand (Jon)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set to 'Geronimo' by Sheppard

Jon never knew his dad, but apparently, this was a Targaryen  _thing._

As if the family weren't bad enough. Sure, Rhae and Egg were okay, and he couldn't speak for Grandma because she'd died when Jon was a baby, but Grandpa was... Not the coolest guy in the world, Viserys was a megalomaniac creep, and Dany was always in over her head with something or other.

Jon was just glad Mom had raised him more or less without contact with his dad's family. He saw Rhae and Egg a few times a year, and that was enough - he liked Egg, knew Rhae found him kind of boring, and thought Elia, his dad's widow, was a pretty cool lady - except now, he had no idea what to do.

"You're a ghost," Jon said. "And I can see you, because I'm a Targaryen?"

"More or less," the kind-of-not-solid ghost of his grandmother said, shrugging helplessly. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, there's one in every generation, and it looks like this time, it's you."

Jon didn't like to think about how his grandma being the Targaryen of her generation with this "gift" kind of confirmed those really, horrifically gross rumours about how closely related her and Jon's grandfather had been, so he tried to work out if someone had slipped him something instead. He wouldn't put it past his shiny new stepsister. Alayne was pretty cool, but she was also prone to trying things out without letting anyone know, like the night she put the chilli powder in the tiny soufflés she'd made for desert.

"You're not high," Grandma said. "Or drunk, or drugged, or anything else - trust me, I thought it was a bad acid trip the first time my grandpa's ghost dropped by to see me."

Well, that was something else to add to the pile of weird - Grandma Rhaella, family saint, junkie.

 

* * *

 

After Mom and Lysa got married, they'd agreed that a fresh start was in order. Lysa didn't want to live in the Vale anymore, and while Mom didn't want to live in Winterfell, she didn't really want to leave the North - so they settled on White Harbour, which suited Lysa, who loved the water, and Mom, by being as far from Winterfell as she could get without leaving the North.

They bought a huge old house not far from the New Keep, in Newmarket, the swankiest neighbourhood in the inner city, and then the family lived in a tiny rented apartment for six months while the house was made habitable. Jon got to know Alayne and her little half-brother, Robin, and he found that actually, having to share Mom wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be. Lysa wasn't much like Aunt Cat, even though they looked pretty alike, but sometimes Alayne reminded Jon of Arya, and Robin reminded him of Rickon, and that was kind of cool.

Everything was going really well, except for Grandma appearing in the tiny room he shared with Robin while Robin was at one of his doctor's appointments, until Jon got to his own room in the new house.

And there was a girl in like, weird, old-fashioned clothes, with bright green hair, sitting on his windowsill.

"Aw, hell."

 

* * *

 

The girl, it turned out, was called Wylla, and she was only a year older than Jon.

Except she'd been a year older than him for about two hundred years, which was kind of weird. She said she'd lived here, back when the house was brand new, while her family ruled White Harbour from the New Keep... Which meant she was a Manderly.

But a dead Manderly. Very much a dead Manderly. Because she was a ghost.

Jon had ignored her a best he could for the first few days - she was more than a little talkative, so it wasn't easy - but gradually, he got used to having her there. She was easier company than Alayne, who Jon liked but who was... Well, she was  _Alayne,_ and she was more fun than Robin, who, again, Jon liked, but who was both a lot younger and kind of fragile.

Before he knew it, he'd been sharing his room with a ghost for six months, and she'd become friends with Grandma.

During that time, he also read all these weird old books Egg sent up from Dragonstone, full of creepy diagrams of exorcisms and hauntings and the kind of thing bad ghosts did to good kids. Some of them went a bit hard for the religious angle, and some could've been straight out of those crappy horror movies him and Robb used to watch when Mom and Uncle Ned and Aunt Cat were out, but some of them...

Some of them were outright creepy. Some of them talked about ghosts that didn't just kill babies, they killed them in  _really awful_ ways, or that hurt little girls, or attacked people with certain health problems, or that targeted people who couldn't get away easily (and didn't that make Jon think of Bran?). Some of them felt a lot like the bullies Jon had gone to school with back home in Winterfell, only one hell of a lot scarier.

And then there was Wylla and Grandma, of course. Looking over his shoulder as he read, and pointing out that some of the bindings and exorcisms actually didn't work.

"How can I believe you?" he asked Wylla, nudging her off his desk and turning to face her properly. "I mean, what if that's the  _most_ effective exorcism ritual, and you just don't want me to use it on you?"

Grandma's hand was warm on his shoulder when she leaned in to look, and she shrugged.

"No, sweetheart, she's right," she said. "This one is completely useless - I would have marked it out myself, except when I was learning them, your great-grandfather was big on the sanctity of the written word and wouldn't let me near the books with a pencil."

Jon crossed the useless rituals out with a big black permanent marker, and he found that even when Grandma wasn't there - which was more and more often, as time went on and he became more confident in these weird abilities that left him climbing out his bedroom window at two in the morning to talk to some asshole who drove himself into a telegraph pole while drunk and thought it was someone else's fault - he kind of liked having Wylla around. Jon had never done the whole girls thing, much, and while it was maybe kind of sad, considering she was dead and all, he just... He really liked her. A lot. 

And then he found out she was watching him in the shower.

 

* * *

 

He stepped out of the shower in the bathroom he shared with Alayne to find Wylla sitting on the sink, her legs crossed and her head tipped to one side.

"Not  _bad,_ Master Snow," she said, passing him a towel and smiling. "I should run the water a little cooler, if I were you - the steam disrupts the view terribly."

"Jesus Christ, Wylla," he snapped, snatching the towel out of her hands. "Get out! Get out!"

"Jon-"

"Get  _out!"_  he snarled, more embarrassed than he'd ever been before, to the point where he didn't see the look of dismay on her face.

When she didn't come back the next day, he figured that she was embarrassed, too.

When she wasn't back at the end of the next  _week,_ he called out until Grandma appeared.

"I think I accidentally exorcised Wylla," he said. "How do I get her back?"


	5. The real bombshells have already sunk (Doran)

When Doran's legs began to succumb to the gout, he did the sensible thing. He evaluated gout as an illness, took stock of the symptoms, and built a pair of leg braces to drain the excess fluid from his legs while administering high-strength painkillers to enable him to walk. Sure, the braces were a little gaudy, but there wasn't much he could do about that - platinum tarnished least, and the electrics were housed in neon-filled tubes as insulation against the shitty atmosphere as a general rule - but they did the job. 

It was all well and good for Oberyn to joke that he looked like a race car, from the old days - it wasn't entirely untrue, after all - but Oberyn could walk unimpeded under his own steam, whereas Doran, well, Doran couldn't, not anymore, so he needed the braces.

And they  _worked._

From there, the whole enterprise sort of grew. Dozens of people were making souped-up cars for the street racing teams that were springing up all over the city, especially down the Waterside and around the Breaker, and there were all kinds of communications gadgets being cobbled together from what hadn't been destroyed in the Fall, but healthcare? No one had time to give a shit about healthcare. There were territory disputes and gang wars and all kinds of fun things for the healthy survivors to get involved in, and Doran was more than happy to let Oberyn take the lead on that - there had been incursions from the Reach, over along the Red Heights, and from the Breaker, all along the Marches, and rumours about hovercraft coming in over the water near Starfall. Doran trusted the Daynes to take care of that, but it was worrying all the same.

Oberyn had been making weapons since the day after the Fall, more or less, dangerous little things that slipped under your skin before you even knew you'd been hit, but there were other people making weapons, and less expensively - huge parts of Dorne had been rendered a technological desert in the Fall, and Oberyn's weapons were costly simply because of how difficult it was to find parts. Places like the West End, even the Riverside, they had an abundance of materials, and the know-how to almost match Oberyn's skill.

So Doran, knowing he needed something to trade to keep his end of the city safe, and since he didn't have the weapons the Tullys had or the precious metals the Lannisters had or the mobility the Greyjoys had or even the damned food the Tyrells had, well, healthcare seemed the best way forward. 

He didn't go straight to market, of course - he tinkered, and worked on things for his family first. He had to be sure these nifty little gadgets of his worked for other things than just  _gout_ before using them as bargaining chips, after all.

For Elia, with her pains and her weak lungs, he built... He didn't know what to call it, really, but Elia herself called it a spinal brace, and he supposed that was as good a name as any.

It was really a series of microinjectors on a platinum frame that, true enough, fit along her spine, that pumped specifically formulated neurotoxins into her system to combat the pain and fatigue that plagued her. Oberyn had mixed up the chemicals, and made Doran swear to never use the word  _neurotoxin_ in front of Elia. As well, he doctored the pump system he had built for his braces and turned it into a piping system to drain the fluid that tended to settle on Elia's lungs - fluid and muck from the air, that her lungs just couldn't filter.

For Aegon, there was rather more research involved. 

Elia's son had been blind and deaf on the left ever since Mountain Clegane had slammed him against a wall when he was just a baby, and while Doran had a degree in neuroscience, it was only a Bachelors, and his undergrad days were lost in the mists of time. He enlisted Oberyn's Sarella, who was a newly-minted doctor, and together they managed to build a neurotransmitter that, when embedded in his sensory centre, would interpret the signals sent by a tiny audio device in his ear and a tiny camera that sat over his eye like a permanent contact lens.

It was genius - Doran didn't feel it was arrogance to admit it. Aegon had spent four days in a daze to finally be able to see and hear properly, with  _depth,_ and Doran knew that if they could manage that, they could manage anything.

So he and Sarella sent word to Ned Stark, Mace Tyrell, Jon Arryn and every other person in the city who had a family member who was in any way disabled, and they began to bargain.

Doran had to laugh when Fat Mace's son wanted to know if the neon tubing could be customised - even a global disaster couldn't kill that Tyrell vanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race" by Fall Out Boy


End file.
